There is a map from suffering back to love.

The pattern

Suffering follows an architecture.

An experience so painful, the person calls a specific version of reality unacceptable. Beyond preferences, dislikes or wanting, this is unacceptable, as in we will do anything and everything to keep it away. This is what we call fear. Avoiding the unacceptable goes beyond an emotion and becomes the organizing principle of our lives. The problem is that reality has no obligation to serve us. How exactly can we ensure the unacceptable stays away? We distort reality to keep our promise.

We think of irrational beliefs as thinking errors when they should be viewed as shields against fear. What we see as irrational behaviors and beliefs are tragic solutions. The tragedy is that the irrational shield is what generates suffering.

The Trauma Logic Chain also has another path. After a traumatic experience, a person can sit with the unacceptable instead of organizing around it. When nothing has to be desperately pushed away, fear loses its role. We can't see truth when we are distorting reality to keep fear away. Acceptance reveals truth. Once we live in truth, what follows is love, for ourselves, others and the world.

There is a universal process that appears in students in South Korea, fashion models in Paris, gang members in Brazil and founders in Silicon Valley. The book traces it through all of them because it lives in all of us.